How much do companies listen to NGOs?
However, current perceptions among NGOs are that while companies are incorporating CSR into their businesses (62% agree), they aren’t taking their responsibilities seriously (64% agree). The actions of global companies only scratch the surface and they are not meeting the expectations of the world’s largest and most influential NGOs.
Perhaps for this reason, NGOs are divided on whether they have influence over the behaviour of these companies. Around three in ten (27%) NGOs globally believe that they are somewhat influential or very influential over company behaviour but a similar proportion (26%) would say otherwise and two in five (38%) sit somewhere in the middle.
This is somewhat alarming since nearly all (96%) NGOs believe companies should be listening to what NGOs have to say but clearly do not feel they hold enough influence to always be heard.
That said, when looking to the future, NGOs are more optimistic with four in five (82%) reporting that they expect their level of influence to increase within the next ten years. And, none think that their influence will decline.
NGOs believe that companies are under greater expectations to operate with a brand purpose; ‘there is a general mood across the corporate world and society that people have to return something, so there is a huge pressure…and once they [companies] start to accept that they can do something then the chances of influencing them increase’. And as the importance of CSR grows, ‘more and more companies take their responsibilities seriously [and] they will want to partner with NGOs and learn from one another. The public demands on corporations will increase and…they [companies] will recognise that they can't do this alone and they need to engage with the NGO community’.
NGOs are confident that they themselves are more focused on this; stating that greater interaction with companies has become a part of their overall strategy (27%). As one International Aid NGO states, ‘increasingly we are being asked for views and positions regarding corporate behaviour policies, government policy etc. It would be the trend that we are seeing and I would fully anticipate that we would continue to be looked to as an authoritative and neutral voice on the issues that we represent’.
Thus while the current relationship between NGOs and corporations appear imbalanced, NGOs trust that they will become more influential within the next decade.
About this survey:
Ipsos conducted 102 telephone interviews between 29 September and 19 December 2014 with Global NGOs.
These Global NGOs participants consisted of CEOs, Directors and Heads of Policy and Programmes across 54 NGOs based in North America, Europe, Central and South America, Africa and Asia.
